The thing is, at a relatively low speed in space-weaponry terms (can't find it right now, and don't have time to derive it, sorry) the kinetic energy of a given mass equals the explosive yield of that amount of TNT. As energy increases with the square of velocity, for most plausible impacting space weapons, there's little point in making them explode; the energy of the explosion would be more or less a hiccup on top of the kinetic energy.

On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 11:45 AM, Grimmund <grimmund@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 12:47 PM, Greg Nokes <greg@nokes.name> wrote:

> Of course at high enough speed, who cares if it’s tumbling, ass backward or
> what ever when it impacts.

Explosive rounds generally have some sort of impact trigger in the
pointy end. Pointy end hit does not hit first, no boom.

Explosive rounds also have potentially fiddly timing as there has to
be enough time for the explosion to propigate before the round
crumples into the side of the target. Quick, but not too quick. I
suspepect this makes them less useful in space, where impact speed can
be potentially too fast to benefit from the explosion.

Kinetic penetrators have a pointy end because, you know, driving a
nail through something works better if you start with the pointy end
of the nail rather than the head or the side.

If you're looking for pure kinetic damage, we can go back to ball
bearings, and nobody cares about the aspect.

--

"Any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from a genuine
kook." -Alan Morgan

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